mmasire88

Yesterday I finished up my new cam chain tensioner on the passenger side of the motor. According to the Bentley manual, there's suppose to be 16 links between each mark? Same as both of my a4 1.8t's, which I have replaced on both cars and didn't have any issues. A little background on the a6 I just repaired. The chain guides shattered on it, put a hole in the valve cover. After cleaning all the tiny pieces out from the head, I Removed all the caps cleaned, oiled them. Reinstalled the chain tensioner, I had marked where the chain came off the cam sprockets with whiteout. The intske cam was about 1 tooth off the timing mark on the cap. This is where I'm stumped, it ran the day before but I cannot get it to start now. I had figured the adjuster would make up for the intske timing being off a little? With 16 links counting from the exhaust cam timing notch over to the intake cam, it leaves the intake cam off by a tooth. It stumbles a bit but can't seem to get it to stay running! Any help/thoughts/advice would be much appreciated. I'm still very new to the 2.8 motor. Thanks in advance guys!

Old_School_Audi

You're not the only one that is confused about this "16 tooth" instruction. I don't count the teeth any more. The end result must look like this when the cams and tensioner are bolted down at TDC:

<a href="http://s5.photobucket.com/user/Mr_Rally/media/A4%20tools/timingmarkscamgears30v.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/Mr_Rally/A4%20tools/timingmarkscamgears30v.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo timingmarkscamgears30v.jpg"/></a>

The notch on one cam is offset about 1/2 tooth. So the question becomes "which side do I offset the 16th roller too?".

Make sure the notch lines up with the cam cap pointer

tester123

There were recent threads about timing belt job done on 2.7t; just as well, you can search for my name in Advanced search with topic "cam" for more info on this link count madness...

At the end, what "Old_School_Audi" mentioned is what needs to happen no matter how you get there. You simply cannot think that, "...the adjuster would make up for the intske timing being off a little..." as you are experiencing the result.

That link count has to be correct and it's always a PIA and confusing to get that "half-mark" right. The best thing to do is to count, put the cams in with caps on ends to hold them down, get crank to TDC and see if the cams align (of course, t-belt has to be installed). When they do, your link count is right. It is the best and trouble-free way to do this.

mmasire88

Update! I pulled the cam and tensioner back out and adjusted the intake cam by 1 tooth, it was definitely off. Bad day to decide to work on it, roughly 10 degrees outside all day! After breaking several vacuum lines and replacing them. I finally got her back together and she still wouldn't start. Although it did fire and run rather rough for a few seconds before dieing and drained the battery. Cranks pretty slow, my battery is on it's way out. When I pulled the plugs the first round, several spark plug holes had about 1/4 cup of oil in each. You could just make out the tips of the plugs once the plug wires were out. Fouled plugs + the combination of a weak battery? I'm going to pick up some new plugs and a battery tomorrow. Figured I'd get your guys Input on the matter as well! Thanks in advance!

tester123

Well, those are some of the basics to get the "fire" going so yeah, I'd cover those first before going further.

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Redo the cam cover gaskets…especially the round ones around the spark plug holes.

mmasire88

I tell ya what, when you dig in to fix one thing, everything else goes wrong. I went down and picked up new plugs put them in and it started up but running awful! Getting multiple misfires, it started out on cylinders 4-5. I went through and checked resistance on all the coil packs and they seem ok. I swapped plug wires from one side to the other, no difference what so ever. I did a compression check on all cylinders and they were all around 165. Brand new plugs are all completely black like it's running insanely rich. After I was done checking compression I put the plugs back in, started the car up and it ran perfectly? Cleared the codes, after about 3 minutes of idling I started getting cylinder 1 misfire, very intermittent I might add. It seems like it runs smooth when I rev it a little bit, but upon decel the rpms drop around 3-500, stumbles and nearly dies. Seems like the misfires are completely random, few minutes later I started getting cylinder 5 again. When I tore it apart, I replaced the passenger side timing chain adjuster, gasket, and half on seal. I hot dipped both valve covers, replaced both valve cover gaskets, including the middle spark plug hole gaskets. Any thoughts? Most of you guys know this motor much better than I do! Thanks in advance

mmasire88

I will also add, that both pcv tubes were nearly 100% clogged.